1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to a side impact absorbing apparatus for a vehicle, and more specifically to a side impact absorbing apparatus that reduces a load that is applied to the hip of an occupant from a side airbag at the latter-half stage of a vehicle side collision.
2. Description of Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2009-173139 describes a side impact absorbing apparatus in related art. In the side impact absorbing apparatus, impact bars are provided between an outer panel and an inner panel of a side door, a hip impact absorbing pad is provided between the inner panel and a door trim, and a side airbag unit is disposed at a position at which the side airbag unit does not overlap the impact bars when seen from the side of a vehicle.
With the above-described side impact absorbing apparatus, the hip of an occupant is restrained in the following manner when a side collision of the host vehicle with another vehicle occurs. A bumper of the other vehicle deforms the impact bars of the host vehicle toward the lateral center of a vehicle compartment of the host vehicle. Then, the impact bars push the inner panel, the hip impact absorbing pad and the door trim toward the lateral center of the vehicle compartment. Thus, a load is applied to a side airbag deployed on the side of the hip of the occupant. In this way, the hip of the occupant is restrained.
However, the above-described side impact absorbing apparatus has the following problem. When a side collision occurs, a load is applied to the door trim via the hip impact absorbing pad and the entirety of the door trim is deflected toward the hip of the occupant. Therefore, it is not possible to reduce a load that is applied to the upper hip and the lower abdomen of the occupant from the side airbag at the latter-half stage of the side collision.